Most wheat and barley producing states have dodged a grain-withering fungus this year, plant pathologists and producers say.

Fusarium head blight, commonly known as scab, has cost wheat, durum and barley farmers billions of dollars in crop losses in the past.

The grain-shriveling disease, which also can sicken humans and livestock, was nearly nonexistent this year in all wheat and grain states except Nebraska and Kansas, said Dave Van Sanford, co-chairman of the U.S. National Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative, a group of wheat and barley producers and scientists working to combat the disease.

Scab is triggered by wet weather at flowering time. Van Sanford said warm and windy conditions replaced excessive moisture this year in most states during that stage.

"We've dodged a bullet," said Van Sanford, who also is a wheat breeder at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "It terms of losses from scab - it's a good year. It's always a delight when Mother Nature cuts us some slack and gives us a break."

The group said Nebraska scab infection this year was the most widespread in two decades, due to heavy rains at flowering. Above-average rainfall and high humidity in parts of Kansas also spawned scab in the eastern and central parts of that state, the group said.

A survey by the group said South Dakota and Minnesota had a "relatively benign scab season."

Wheat crops in Ohio, Kentucky, New York, Maryland and North Carolina were nearly scab-free, the group said.

In North Dakota, Marcia McMullen, a plant pathologist at North Dakota State University, said heavy spring rain gave way to warm, dry weather, allowing producers to avoid "a potential big problem."

North Dakota farmers have long led the nation in the production of spring wheat, which is used to make bread, and in durum, the wheat variety used to make semolina flour for pasta.

McMullen said scab affected some 25 million bushels of wheat in North Dakota two years ago, while only about 2 million bushels - or less than 1 percent of the state's crop - were infected this year.

Scab also affected only about 1 percent of North Dakota's barley crop, she said. North Dakota is the nation's largest barley-producing state, usually accounting for about a third of the total U.S. crop.

NDSU officials said scab cost North Dakota's farm economy $162 million in 2005 and $176 million in 1997.

McMullen said scab-related losses in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota in 1993 totaled more than $1 billion.

Scab "robs yields and eats grain," McMullen said. A byproduct called vomitoxin also poses a food safety problem, she said.

Farmers have battled scab by planting varieties that are more tolerant of the disease, by crop rotation and by spraying fungicides, McMullen said.

Scab has forced many durum producers to plant less finicky crops in the past decade, said Willow City farmer Jim Diepolder, who also is president of the Bismarck-based U.S. Durum Growers Association. This year's state crop has been estimated at around 44 million bushels.

Diepolder said that while the absence of scab in most of the crop this year is good news, the long-term outlook for the crop is bleak because of the disease.

North Dakota durum acres have slid from about 5 million a decade ago to about 2 million this year and yields are down, Diepolder said. The price, meanwhile, has jumped to more than $17 per bushel at North Dakota elevators. Last year it was around $4.20 per bushel at harvest time.

"Durum supplies have dwindled - nobody's got any to sell," Diepolder said. "Most traditional durum farmers have quit growing it because of scab."

Durum is more prone to scab than spring wheat, which has varieties that have a higher level of tolerance to the disease, Diepolder said.

"We need to find a (durum) variety that is scab resistant, or at the very least, scab tolerant, or we'll be losing the durum industry here," Diepolder said.